Search This Blog

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Obama Lied During Debt Ceiling Debate

Remember that debacle? The time when we began to have our credit rating downgraded because the debt ceiling deal didn't include big spending cuts? At the spending rate we're going, we'll probably need another debt ceiling raise by October, which is two months earlier than Obama had planned because it's before the general election. Read this, because I bet we could expect a lot of the same things to happen all over again. And the same biased media coverage blaming the GOP falsely, to boot.Rush Limbaugh tipped me off Monday to the Washington Post story, Obama's evolution: Behind the failed 'grand bargain' on the debt. It's a very long article reminding us of the debt talks, the back and forths, and the fall-outs, but it goes behind the scenes, so to speak. It talks about details from the 'secret meetings' between Boehner, Reid, Obama, and others.
For the sake of brevity I'll quote from Rush, who summarizes it nicely.

And what this story points out is that Obama purposely, intentionally lied to the American people when he told us that the Republicans were not interested in raising taxes, that they wanted a cuts-only solution to the debt crisis. It turns out that John Boehner and Eric Cantor had indeed offered $808 million in tax increases. Obama lied. He just flat-out lied to the American people about the Republicans and their position in the debt negotiations. He flat-out lied.

And further down:

This story paints Harry Reid and Pelosi as practically irrelevant. Where everybody thinks they're part of the problem, part of the obstacles problem, this story makes it clear that they're just up there to do Obama's bidding but that Obama doesn't know how to negotiate. This story points out that Obama's incompetent when he negotiates because he lies. He told Boehner and he told the country that the Republicans were not willing to compromise in an area, and they were all along.Boehner said, "I don't know what to do about this." By the way, I had a meeting with Boehner not long before that. This was last summer sometime, and I had a meeting with Boehner here at the EIB Southern Command some months before that. I just casually asked him what it was like working with Harry Reid. And he said, "You know, it'd surprise you. If it were just Reid and me we could get a deal done." Of course I thought he was off. "Oh, gosh. Don't tell me he really believes this." He did. He said, "If it was just Reid and me we'd get a deal." He said, "Harry gets it." I said, "Oh my. (groan)" This story says that. Or pretty close to it.
This story in the front page of the Washington Post pretty much says that Boehner and Reid could and it work together, and that Obama is the whole problem. Obama was campaigning. Obama had to give his base something. Obama, the whole debt limit thing was a phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock 'n' roller diversion. Yeah, he wanted the debt ceiling raised but he could not afford for his base, lunatic fringe base to see him as compromising at all. This is the bunch that talks about "compromise." This is the bunch (along with the Republican establishment, too,) heralding the beauties and the wonders of compromise.
And here was Obama making it look like he was willing to compromise. He was the stone wall, and he lied in a national address to the nation! He lied in a prime-time address to the nation. And don't take my word for it if you don't want to. It's the Washington Post.

Rush likes to remind his listeners that there is no room for compromise in the current political climate: where is the compromise between implementing drastic spending cuts to save the country versus the continual spending increases that the left wants and we cannot afford? That's almost besides the point in this debt ceiling discussion since the deal fell through, but it illustrates the absurdity of compromise being the best option. Rush, even at that time, was saying that Obama wants to run against a do-nothing Congress so he's not going to take any deal. Use the links on top to see for yourself. But if you're too lazy, here's more of what you shouldn't miss:

And here was Obama making it look like he was willing to compromise. He was the stone wall, and he lied in a national address to the nation! He lied in a prime-time address to the nation. And don't take my word for it if you don't want to. It's the Washington Post.
And also the story says that he doesn't know nearly what he thinks he knows. He's... I'll use the word "ignorant." Arrogant and ignorant. Arrogant condescension is the way Obama's portrayed in this story in dealing with the Republicans. Also it points out that Reid and Pelosi were nonfactors. They took the heat but they had to follow Obama's lead. So not only is he incompetent, he's dishonest. Once he got what he asked for he moved the goalposts and did it in a prime-time address to the nation. But the story didn't end there. From the New York Times, this is a story in July, July 23rd.
"Debt Ceiling Costs Collapse as Boehner Walks Out." Then in August is when the country debt ceiling had its credit rating downgraded, August of 2011. We lost our AAA credit rating because the debt ceiling fell through, and we now know (thanks to the Washington Post) that it fell through because Obama refused to accept it. It had everything in it he wanted and that was the problem. His bluff was called. I think toward the end of the negotiations, Boehner and the Republicans just decided, "Okay, let's see what happens," because it was proving impossible to negotiate with him. Every day that they negotiated, Boehner and Cantor would hear things that had not been agreed to.
They would listen to Obama recount things that had not been discussed, basically making it up every day as a negotiating tactic to keep them off balance. Nobody would know this to this day. We'd only have speculation. Well, Boehner and the guys know it but had they made a big deal out of it, they would have just been accused of being crybabies and whiners. So, I don't know the purpose of the story. I don't know why the Washington Post ran this thing yesterday, and I don't know why they spent so much time on it.
I don't know why the Washington Post basically lets anybody who reads this story know that Obama was the single problem here; that he's incompetent, arrogant and he lied to the nation in a prime-time address. I don't know why they're running this story. But, folks, I'm just gonna tell you here that there's abject panic in the White House. And again, things can turn on a dime in the business of politics. Republicans could screw up tomorrow (that's quite easy) and Obama would be back on a wave that nobody could stop him.

The Washington Post doesn't use these adjectives that Rush uses about Obama, for the record. But the information is all there, and it is easy enough to draw the same conclusions about Obama's incompetence, dishonesty, etc.

No comments:

Post a Comment

For a democracy to be successful and for government to reflect and uphold the will of the people, it is imperative that citizens take their voting responsibility seriously enough to be well informed. The first step is understanding that there is no such thing as fair and balanced coverage anymore, including the polls and fact-checkers. Including both sides in your sources of information is essential to forming an educated opinion. Both sides leave things out. For example, the leftist news media leaves out the good qualities in Republicans, the Tea Party, conservative causes, etc.

Comments are welcome but civility is required, hence the blog owner approval requirement. We need to have a discussion across partisan divides, not a shouting match. No name-calling will be approved for publishing in the comments.